This blog is about The Big Picture - information and insights about what goes on in the world outside our borders - and what it means for Americans. Unless otherwise specified, all photos from Deena Stryker archive.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Foreordained

You know how we always complain when the Xmas decorations go up after Halloween, and we think “why can’t they wait until it’s time”?

Well, Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Mile High Stadium in Denver was a foreordained happening. It didn’t have to wait for election night. And however ridiculous that sounds, it’s because it embodies the foremost fact about this election: America knows it has to have a president like Obama or it will become, in George Bush’s ill-chosen words a propos the United Nations, irrelevant.

The music and the fireworks, the streamers and the balloons, celebrated America’s awakening after a much longer sleep than that officially acknowledged.

Continuing on the theme of yesterday’s blog: “America’s High Wire Act”, I will say again that the appearance of a return to the “fundamental values” of the Democratic Party has only been possible because even the most cynical politicians realize that the United States has over time dug itself into a bottomless pit.

The world is moving (largely without us) toward resolution of an eternal struggle, which is now rendered more complex by the requirements of sustainability (or maintaining the planet as a human habitat), and belonging. In many parts of the world, tribal and territorial conflicts overlay the struggle for fairness. These need to be sorted out, but we must not lose sight of the fact that belonging is a fundamental human need, while nationalism is a construct whose time has passed.

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Welcome to Otherjones!

The alternative press is replete with despair and ‘hope’, neither of which is helpful. ‘Squawking’ may alleviate some of the pain Americans experience at being identified with a government that brutalizes Others at will, but it doesn’t change the ‘facts on the ground’. As for hope, it is an easy cop-out: in the present state of the world, we can never be certain that tomorrow will come. Whether a barefoot child in Africa or a hedge-fund manager, all of us are the potential victims of hubris.

This blog aims to prepare my readers in ways more important than stockpiling food and bandages for whatever happens, as we transition from an American century to a world century, helping them see through the web of lies with which we are being controlled.

Having lived for years at a time in half a dozen ‘foreign’, countries — learning their languages and histories — I have a unique ability to identify events that bear watching. That life, however, could not provide ‘retirement benefits’, so if you appreciate the unique combination of information and insight that characterizes my work, I hope you will integrate a small donation to Otherjones into your budget.

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P.S. I encourage you to review the archive. You will find many posts from recent years still relevant today.

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If You Had Been Watching....

One of the worst aspects of the US media landscape is its neglect of what goes on in the rest of the world. When I returned from nineteen years of living in France, where I sometimes watched CNN’s excellent coverage of world events, I was surprised that in the US, CNN offered nothing comparable. I called the main editorial office in New York and was told ’Americans aren’t interested in foreign affairs’, revealing one one the reasons why the US government gets away with wreaking havoc around the world: Americans have no information that would prompt them to protest their county’s actions abroad.

The fact is that several countries’ governments — aside from the British — fund international television channels. These include France 24, NHK (Japan) , Al-Jazeera (Qatar) RT (Russia) and Telesur (Latin America). These channels usually broadcast in English, Spanish and Arabic, using native speakers, enabling most people in most parts of the world to hear news that their national outlets do not cover and get a broad window onto the world.

Meanwhile, Americans are told that the channel that is most significant for them, RT, is propaganda!

RT is significant not only because, like the other foreign channels it offers a wide range of programs but because it includes opinions from many well-known Americans who are barred from our own mainstream media.

From time to time I will signal significant news stories covered by these foreign channels that are absent from our own.